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Israel Admits to Targeting Journalist Ismail al-Ghoul [1]
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Date: 2024-08-01 21:17:17+00:00
We unequivocally condemn Israel’s killing of journalist Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera journalist reporting on Israel’s deadly war on Gaza. al-Ghoul was killed alongside his cameraman Rami Al-Rifi when a missile struck the car. Horrific images of the aftermath showed al-Ghoul wearing his press vest and decapitated by the missile strike.
On the site formerly known as Twitter Israel confessed to targeting the journalist while boasting he was “eliminated.”
“When you ‘eliminate’ journalists, it’s much easier to hide war crimes, it’s easier to spread lies, it’s easier to commit genocide,” said Defending Rights & Dissent Executive Director Sue Udry.
“Assassinating a journalist is a war crime under international law. As the largest supplier of arms to Israel, the US bears both legal and moral responsibility for this heinous act. Under international and domestic law, the US is obligated to cease arming Israel. The Leahy Law prohibits military assistance to military units when there are credible allegations of gross violations of human rights. An extrajudicial execution of a journalist is a gross violation of human rights. And there is no greater credible evidence than Israel’s stomach churning confession that it ‘eliminated’ a revered journalist. President Biden and Blinken must act now to not only invoke the Leahy Law, but work for a total arms embargo on Israel. Anything less than that is active complicity in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian journalists,” said Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons.
Israel has cynically sought cover for their crime with an evidence free assertion that al-Ghoul, a well-known and much praised journalist, was a Hamas operative. Al Jazeera has rejected this baseless claim while noting “Israel’s long history of fabrications and false evidence used to cover up its heinous crimes”
The murder of Al-Ghoul, and his cameraman Rami Al-Rifi, cannot be seen outside of the context of Israel’s all out campaign to impose a media blackout over the atrocities committed in Gaza. al-Ghoul’s murder adds to a grim statistic – according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Israel has killed over 140 journalists since October 7. Both al-Ghoul and al-Rifi were wearing press vests when they were killed in an airstrike. According to journalists on the scene, their car was hit by a single missile fired from a drone. al-Ghoul and al-Rifi’s deaths add to a tally of journalists Israel has killed while wearing press vests, from Shireen Abu Akleh to journalists to the seven previous journalists already killed in uniform since October 7. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate estimates that 10% of journalists in Gaza have been killed by Israel.
Defending Rights & Dissent condemns Israel’s targeting of journalists and calls for an end to US military assistance to Israel. We are currently leading an effort to get press freedom organizations and journalists to publicly call on Secretary of State Blinken to impose an arms embargo on Israel over its killing of Palestinian journalists.
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[1] Url:
https://www.rightsanddissent.org/news/israel-admits-to-targeting-journalist-ismail-al-ghoul/
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